Alexis Lauricella, PhD

Adults often fret over how big of a presence digital technology has in children’s lives. But as Alexis Lauricella, PhD, has studied, technology doesn’t have to cause worry. Instead, it can be a tool in children’s education and overall development.

“Children spend so many hours with technology at home, in school, in libraries — everywhere,” she says. “I want to understand how media and technology influence child development and how technology can be used best to support learning.”

Dr. Lauricella joined the faculty of Erikson Institute in 2018 and also serves as the director of Erikson’s Technology in Early Childhood (TEC) Center, where she studies the intersecting fields of digital media and early childhood. Her research has been frequently published in academic journals and books, and she is a regular presenter at conferences in the United States and abroad.

Among her research findings has been an understanding of how children learn through using technology and the role adults play in supporting that learning.

“When you watch children using technology, it looks like they get it so easily,” she says. “But we have to remember that children are little experimenters, and they are willing to try different things with technology that adults have more reservations about. That doesn’t necessary mean that they are processing and understanding what they are doing or that they even can replicate it. So, we have to be careful not to associate comfort with technology with ability to learn from it.”

At the heart of Dr. Lauricella’s work is a passion for children and education that stems from growing up with a mother who was a teacher. Growing up, she thought she might want to be an elementary school teacher but realized in college that she could support children’s learning in other ways, such as through research and helping develop quality educational media. She interned at Sesame Workshop, which solidified her passion for studying child development and media and led her to pursue a PhD in developmental psychology with a focus on studying educational media.

She also is the founder of playlearnparent.com, a website that helps translate child development research for parents. She developed the site as a way of using technology to inform and support parents by providing them with small bits of child development information that can help guide them through some of the challenges of parenthood.

“Parenting is hard,” she says. “There is an expectation that we all inherently know how to be parents, but we all could use some help and guidance.”